Happy Friday! Here are your headlines to start your weekend off right:
: Senate Rejects Step Targeting Coverage Of Contraception
The Senate on Thursday upheld President Obama鈥檚 birth control policy, voting to kill a Republican effort to let employers and health insurance companies deny coverage for contraceptives and other items they object to on religious or moral grounds (Pear, 3/1).
: Birth Control Exemption Bill, The 鈥楤lunt Amendment,鈥� Killed In Senate
The measure, an amendment proposed by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) to a highway funding bill, would have allowed not only religious groups but any employer with moral objections to opt out of the coverage requirement. And it would have allowed such employers to do so in the case of not only contraception but any health service required by the 2010 health-care law (Aizenman and Helderman, 3/1).
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: Senate Turns Away Birth-Control Measure
The Senate voted 51-48 Thursday to set aside a measure that would have allowed employers to omit insurance coverage for health services they find morally objectionable, the latest step in a fiery debate that has pushed its way into the presidential race and congressional campaigning (Bendavid, 3/1).
: GOP Mulls Contraception Strategy
Fresh off their defeat on the Senate floor Thursday, congressional Republicans pledged to move forward with their efforts to broaden the exemptions from the Obama administration鈥檚 contraception coverage rule. But they were left without a clear strategy for moving ahead, and the fight seemed to have energized Democrats, who welcomed the debate as a chance to win over independent women during an election year (Haberkorn, 3/2).
: Beth Israel To Pay $13 Million For Inflating Medicare Fees
Beth Israel Medical Center has admitted that it fraudulently inflated its fees for services to Medicare patients, deliberately deceiving the federal government into paying many millions of dollars more than their treatments actually cost (Bernstein, 3/1).
: NYC Hospital Admits To Fraudulent Medicare Fees
The complaint says the fraudulent practice, known as 鈥渢urbocharging,鈥� went on at Beth Israel from 1998 through 2003. The complaint says the hospital deceived the Medicare program into believing that the costs associated with inpatient medical care were higher than they actually were (3/1).
: Poll Finds Divisions Over Requiring Coverage
The close divide in a Senate vote Thursday over whether employers can refuse insurance coverage for contraception mirrors a sharp partisan divide among the public, according to a national poll and interviews with women around the country (Eckholm, 3/1).
: Kaiser Poll Finds Opinions On Medicare Are 鈥楳alleable鈥�
The latest poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds most people want to keep Medicare鈥檚 basic benefit structure as it is today 鈥� though those on both side of the argument can potentially be swayed (Hobson, 3/1).
: Pharma Code Revamp Follows US Industry Sweep
The Geneva-based International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations said Thursday it expanded its practice code to cover all interactions with health-care professionals, medical institutions and patient organizations, including a ban on doctors from receiving payments to attend conferences (Rubenfeld, 3/1).
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